OK, so the news today that IOS devices can be hacked by following a now publicly available procedure to enable a user to bypass the iPhone and iPad password lock is seriously BAD news … particularly for companies who are looking to deploy IOS devices as part of an enterprise BYOD initiative to access corporate mobile applications.

It should be plainly obvious why letting an unscrupulous hacker into your ‘secure’ IOS device will be seen as a major security risk, particularly if your device includes applications that have auto-log on functions and can access sensitive corporate content or data.

Luckily, there is salvation for IOS users who want to have access to enterprise mobile applications

Users authenticate to the Mobile Portal container environment using any one of 15 supported authentication methods, including Active Directory Federated profiles (ADFS), 2-factor authentication, third party Identity Management solutions, as well as via third party providers, like Windows LiveID, Google or Yahoo profiles. Once authenticated, users will be able to launch HTML5 web applications from the Mobile Portal container with single sign-on.

If you are an IOS user and you are concerned about Apple’s IOS screen-lock bypass issue and you would like to evaluate Azurati’s secure HTML5 Web Application Container, contact sales@azurati.com and we will be happy to arrange a demonstration and trial.

Mobile Application Containers allow users to access approved corporate mobile applications from a single secure location, which can be wiped, if necessary, without affecting other personal apps and data.

In this webinar, Ronan Lavelle from Azurati will present the Azurati Mobile Portal™ – a new Mobile Application Container solution uniquely for HTML5 mobile web applications. This webinar will cover the following

The business case for Mobile App Containers for HTML5 applications

Mobile user authentication

Accessing corporate mobile applications on any mobile device

Single Sign-On

Publishing mobile HTML5 applications to the Mobile Portal container

MDM or no MDM, that is the question

If you are considering a cross-platform or BYOD mobile strategy and the use of HTML5 for mobile enterprise applications, this webinar is ideal for you.

Who should attend?
CIOs
IT Strategists/Architects
Mobile analysts
Business executives with an interest in mobile enterprise applications

Please feel free to forward this invitation to any friends or colleagues who may be interested in this topic.

Last month, we heard that the cause of the delay to updates to a number of Microsoft applications (like SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro) on the IOS App Store was a dispute between Apple and Microsoft over Apple’s insistence that all app developers who monetize their Apps that have been downloaded from the Apple App Store pay Apple a 30% royalty fee.

For those developers who post free apps to the App Store, they have nothing to worry about. However, Apple is now starting to hone in on those developers that use the App Store as a free channel to market by publishing ‘free’ apps that later require the user to pay a fee or licence to the developer. Apple says that these in-app fees and purchases should be subject to the same 30% royalty payment as Apps that are paid for directly in the App Store marketplace.

This is a big problem for Microsoft and other App developers because Apple’s terms and conditions, which Apple states are uniform for all developers, require the developer to pay Apple a 30% margin on all in-app purchases, upgrades, enhancements, etc. – in perpituity; even if the end user switches to another mobile platform in the future.

Microsoft has found this condition quite hard to digest as you might imagine and now finds itself in a state of limbo as far as its portfolio of IOS apps are concerned. For instance, the IOS SkyDrive app has a new version ready to be deployed with important feature and security updates, but it has not been published to the IOS App Store yet.

Enter HTML5 AppsCoincidentally, Microsoft recently announced major new enhancements to its HTML5 version of SkyDrive, supporting swiping gestures and drag and drop features that many would only think possible with native device applications.

So, has Microsoft begun the process of by-passing native application App Stores to focus on rich cross-platform HTML5 mobile web applications? In reality, the answer in the short term is probably not, but they are certainly pursuing a multi-channel mobile strategy that will make the HTML5 option more attractive in the future, particularly if it means having to avoid costly fees to App Store operators.

In the enterprise space however, we see HTML5 applications having a much more powerful impact. HTML5 mobile applications are the only true way for a CIO to implement an all-inclusive BYOD or cross-platform mobile strategy economically and they do not require costly investments in Mobile Device Management (MDM) infrastructures.

Check out www.azurati.com to see how HTML5-based mobile applications are being used in the enterprise to transform the productivity of mobile business users.

Nielson Norman Group, a leading Intranet design and consulting firm, have just published their annual top 10 Intranets study; an annual review of the top 10 corporate intranet sites from companies around the world.

Nielsen Norman’s top 10 best designed intranets for 2013 are:

1.

Acorda Therapeutics, Inc.

Biotechnology

USA

2.

American International Group, Inc.

Insurance

USA

3.

AT&T

Telecommunications

USA

4.

Hager Group

Manufacturing

Germany

5.

Luzerner Kantonalbank AG

Financial Services

Switzerland

6.

ONO

Telecommunications

Spain

7.

Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA)

Governmental Agency

Saudi Arabia

8.

Swiss Mobiliar Insurance and Pensions

Insurance

Switzerland

9.

WorkSafeBC

Workers Compensation Board of British Columbia

Canada

10.

XL Group Plc

Insurance

Ireland

Interesting points to note from the report are that, according to Nielsen Norman, over 70% of corporate intranets are built on a Microsoft SharePoint platform, and mainly due to the fact that corporate intranets take a very long time to develop and perfect (an average of 26.5 months or 2.3 years), mobile enablement of corporate intranets is seriously lagging behind other new features, like Social Collaboration.

This means that many corporate intranets are failing to address the needs of a growing number of users who want to be able to access corporate information and knowledge on mobile devices. Gartner estimates that by the end of 2014, 70% of enterprises will have implemented a BYOD strategy and the corporate intranet is one of the most obvious enterprise resources that should be made available on mobile devices.

The report lists common mobile barriers as being:

Security concerns

Difficulty of choosing a platform

Lack of resources to create and maintain mobile builds

Uncertainty about whether to implement a full feature set with a good mobile user experience or an app for particular tasks

Creating mobile SharePoint intranets
As with all things software, there will always be the debate as to whether one should build and develop a bespoke solution, or whether a commercial off-the-shelf solution would make better commercial sense. The same will undoubtedly be the same when you come around to considering mobile-enabling your SharePoint-based intranet.

Our (biased) counsel, would be to refrain from custom development of mobile interfaces with SharePoint. It is a fairly well known issue that Microsoft has not done a good job with the standard mobile templates that ship with SharePoint. Even with SharePoint 2013, developers are dissuaded from branding and customising the standard mobile templates that ship with SharePoint. In addition, new mobile templates need to be developed for each form-factor that is released, which can lead to prohibitive on-going costs of maintenance and support. That is why solutions like Azurati’s SharePoint2Go solution is able to deliver mobile enabled SharePoint that will work seamlessly on any mobile device in five minutes.

Not only does SharePoint2Go deliver an instant cross-platform mobile solution for SharePoint intranets, it also includes over 15 options to authenticate your mobile users securely; with everything from forms-based authentication to 2-factor built in to SharePoint2Go’s administrator wizards.

SharePoint2Go your way
If your SharePoint intranet is heavily customised with value-adding functions that make your desktop version of your intranet a productive experience (like company news, people finders, document repositories, management dashboards, etc.), SharePoint2Go can be extended by developers to create mobile versions of custom SharePoint web parts – we call them V-Parts. V-Parts can be designed to be used within the mobile SharePoint interface, or as stand-alone full-screen mobile applications that can operate in offline mode as well as online.

As an HTML5 mobile application that is accessible via the mobile device’s browser, SharePoint2Go will work with feature-parity on any mobile device, no matter what the market throws at you; making it the ideal solution to complement your enterprise mobile or BYOD strategy.

Find out more
If you are looking to mobile-enable your SharePoint intranet and you are looking for a solution that:

is built with enterprise security in mind

will work on any mobile device or form factor, with feature-parity, and will therefore complement your enterprise mobile or BYOD strategy

will not require costly internal development teams to develop and maintain your mobile environment, or costly Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions, get in touch with Azurati.

To find out more about Azurati’s SharePoint2Go solution for mobile-enabling Microsoft SharePoint and to request a free 14 day trial, contact info@azurati.com or visit www.azurati.com.

The development team at Azurati would even have impressed Santa’s Elves this Holiday season with the raft of new exciting innovations and enhancements that they have managed to roll-out to support our secure, cross-platform mobile enterprise proposition.

Today, we are excited to announce a number of new innovations that have not previously been available to any enterprise mobile users, which we hope will boost the adoption of HTML5-based mobile applications in the enterprise:

Azurati Mobile Portal
The Azurati Mobile Portal provides a new way for enterprise users to access HTML5-based mobile applications securely from any mobile device. With the Azurati Mobile Portal, enterprise users are able to authenticate themselves once and then use the Mobile Portal interface as an HTML5 mobile application launchpad, enabling mobile apps to be launched with secure single sign-on.

The Azurati Mobile Portal is great for both IT and the mobile user community because it provides a secure environment to access HTML5 mobile applications that can be centrally controlled (without needing expensive Mobile Device Management solutions).

Azurati AppsAzurati Apps are HTML5 applications that can be developed as cross-platform mobile applications from the ground-up, or as cross-platform mobile versions of existing enterprise software applications.

What’s more, for the first time, Microsoft SharePoint users who frequently access custom developed Web Parts in SharePoint, can create specific full-screen mobile applications from Web Parts that can be accessed via the Azurati Mobile Portal. Examples of these may be Staff Contact lists, Product data lists, Company news and discussions, etc.

Azurati Apps can be developed to support Dynamic Offline access so that mobile users can continue to work and be productive even when Internet connectivity is lost.

Enhancements to Azurati V-Parts in SharePoint2Go
Azurati has made a number of enhancements to our V-Part architecture that now makes it easier than ever to convert custom developed SharePoint Web Parts and access them via Azurati’s cross-platform mobile SharePoint solution, SharePoint2Go.

If you find that the true value in SharePoint is not in its out-of-the-box feature set, but in the custom developed Web Parts and SharePoint apps (like Staff contact lists, project task lists, company news, BI reports, sales pipeline data, etc.), then for the first time, you will be able to continue to use these functions

Live editing of documents from SharePoint2Go
A common request from Azurati customers was the ability to edit documents from SharePoint2Go. Up until now, this has been technically complex because of the fact that SharePoint2Go is a mobile web application. However, we are pleased to announce a new capability that will allow live editing of documents from SharePoint2Go using Microsoft Office Web Apps on iPads.

The following screenshots show how this works (click images to view enlarged view):

SharePoint2Go On-Premise deployments
We are pleased to announce also, that we are now able to offer On-Premise deployments of SharePoint2Go in addition to our standard Microsoft Azure Cloud option. Enterprise customers who feel that they are unable to make use of Cloud-based services may install the Azurati SharePoint2Go server on internal servers behind the corporate firewall.

More information about Azurati
If you are considering HTML5-based mobile applications as part of your enterprise mobility strategy or if you would like to understand more about any of these announcements and Azurati’s HTML5 enterprise mobility solutions, please contact us via www.azurati.com.